13. Incoming Disaster
Incoming Disaster
Desdemona
The twins’ self-control snaps the moment we exit the library. Thankfully, my face has cooled down by then, my heartbeat settled, and my flustered confusion from earlier shoved firmly in a cupboard deep in my mind to deal with later.
“What’s going on with you and Noxie?” William says in a scandalised tone.
They both turn to face me, hands folded in front of them like overzealous bodyguards.
They’re almost as tall as me, and at only sixteen, which tells me they’re going to be massive by the time they’re my age.
Thankfully, and if everything goes according to plan, I’ll be at Harvard by the time that happens.
“His name is Elias,” I snap, pushing past them.
They have no choice but to follow after me as I make my way back to the girls’ dormitory. I keep my pace brisk on purpose, hoping to lose them along the way—the last thing I need right now is whatever this brotherly interrogation is supposed to be.
Especially when I have my own interrogating to do.
“Nobody calls him Elias,” Austen is pointing out sullenly.
“They should,” I say sternly. “It’s his name.”
“He didn’t call you by your name,” Austen mutters.
I whip my head to throw him a look that paralyses him on the spot. “Pardon?”
He takes a quick step back. “Nothing.”
“So you two an item, or what?” William says. “Just wondering, not disapproving, because—”
I turn suddenly on him—the weak link. “When was the last time you spoke to Ophelia?”
He blinks, taken completely aback. The blue of his eyes, that summer shade, sends a sudden crush of melancholy pressing into my ribcage. Dad’s eyes.
Dad—who said to me at the beginning of the year: “Look after them for me, Dess, will you?”
William shrugs mulishly. “How should I remember?”
I whip my head to the side to look at Austen, who tells me the truth with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer to the face. “We had an argument.”
“What?” I stop in my tracks, and the twins almost fall into each other as they lurch around to look at me. “You two argued with Ophelia? Why?”
The twins exchange a glance. A bad sign.
“It wasn’t really an argument,” mutters William.
“We’re just trying to keep her out of trouble,” Austen adds.
“It was more like a disagreement,” William continues, overlapping his brother. “You see, there’s a Halloween party at Benjamin Montgomery’s house, and—”
“Benjamin?” I frown. “Are you sure?”
Benjamin Montgomery is the last member of the so-called Blood Brotherhood. He’s also head boy—and one of this year’s Spearcrest Apostles, the academic excellence programme started by the former headmaster, Mr Ambrose.
He’s competing for a prestigious scholarship at Oxford, where he’s planning to read politics, and with his bitter rival Emerald on his heels at every turn, I doubt he’d want to do anything to jeopardise his chances with the programme.
So why on earth is he throwing a party of all things?
“You two and your sister are all strictly forbidden from attending this party.”
I speak so suddenly and so firmly that both of them start, stepping back. They exchange another look, eyes widening, mouths opening to say something, but I hold up a finger.
“Don’t.” My voice is ice cold, my hands curled into fists. “Not a word. Let me make this perfectly clear: if I see either of you at this party—worse, if I see Ophelia there—I’m going to put you both on the detention register every single day for the rest of my time in Spearcrest. I swear it.”
They glare at me, outraged.
“Even if it’s just Ophelia who goes?” Austen says.
“Especially then.” I give them both a sharp, final smile. “Try me.”
But of course, they wouldn’t dare. Not because I swore I’d give them a year’s worth of detentions.
Because I’ve done it before.
It’s only afterwards, when I’m hopelessly checking my phone between English class and maths class for a text from Ophelia, that I realise I never got around to asking the twins about the argument they had with her.
I pause in the middle of the corridor, by the tomb-shaped embrasure of a window, and turn to gaze out of it without seeing, lost in thought.
Should I ask Ophelia about the argument? They said it had something to do with the party. But what would be the point? Ophelia’s not answering my texts anyway.
Is she really planning on showing up to the party?
Surely not—she’s fifteen, and there’s no chance Benjamin Montgomery of all people would ever want a fifteen-year-old at his party.
His parents’ mansion is practically a national heritage monument, and besides, Benjamin might be the only person in Spearcrest who hates parties more than I do.
I pull out my phone and I type out a text:
Desdemona Sutton-Knight: What’s this about a Halloween party?
I send it to three people: Blaise, who knows everything and everyone in Spearcrest. Benjamin himself, the unlikely culprit at the heart of this brand new incoming disaster. And Emerald Carver, who I can only describe as the poison in Benjamin’s veins.
Outside, there’s a deep, ominous rumble. A hush falls on the grounds, and soon, the trees and rooftops of Spearcrest half-disappear beneath a thick mist of rain.
I turn away from the window with a sigh.
No wonder Mum hated this place.
When I step out of history class, my bag heavy with books and thick sheaves of past papers and exemplar material, I find an avalanche of texts awaiting me—and not one of them providing me with the information I was after.
William Sutton-Knight: Don’t worry about Ophelia, ok? We’re keeping her out of trouble.
William Sutton-Knight: Don’t put us on the detention register again, D. Please.
William Sutton-Knight: My grades have gone up in history btw.
Austen Sutton-Knight: I don’t get it, are you dating Noxie or not?
Austen Sutton-Knight: I mean Elias.
That’s none of their business, and besides, the question of whether or not I’m dating Elias Lennox is one that’s so complicated I wouldn’t even know how to answer it to myself.
I scroll down.
Blaise Blackwood: Benji’s party? Of course I’ll be in attendance. Someone needs to keep Dimitri in check.
Blaise Blackwood: You bringing Lennox? The twins have been texting me non-stop about your little love affair.
I make a mental note to have their heads for texting Blaise about my private business, and I keep reading.
Blaise Blackwood: Still, I’d rather you be dating Elias Lennox, for all his elastic sense of morality, than that spineless pissant, Julian.
Blaise Blackwood: No offence.
Blaise Blackwood: What are you dressing as for Halloween?
I roll my eyes. Like I don’t have more important things to think about.
I keep scrolling through the notifications, my annoyance mounting with every text I scroll past.
Dimitri Kavinski: Saw what the inquisitor posted
Dimitri Kavinski: Bout you and Lennox.
Dimitri Kavinski: Hah
As if the Inquisitor isn’t posting photos of Dimitri passed out in a pool of his own vomit and/or blood every other day.
Why bother? I don’t even respond; I swipe his messages straight off my screen. I know for a fact Dimitri doesn’t even like the Inquisitor—he’s probably just happy my situation is drawing more attention than his toxic betrothal drama.
Benjamin and Emerald both replied, texting me back within a minute of each other. Each more useless than the last.
Benjamin Montgomery: ?
Which, from the star orator of Spearcrest, feels like avoidance pure and simple.
Emerald Carver: God, I know, how embarrassing. It’s like he’s trying to convince the rest of Spearcrest that he’s not a bookish loser weasel with his head stuck all the way up his asshole. Pathetic, truly.
Predictable, but hardly informative.
Still nothing from Ophelia. I don’t want to think it’s because of Birnam—I saw his texts, that night in the boathouse, before I smashed his phone.
What he didn’t say in those texts is the gaping chasm that seems to stretch ever wider between me and Ophelia.
She knows what Birnam did, and I know that the twins would rather have killed him than let him show other people.
The thought is so crushing I have no choice but to run away from it. Birnam is gone, still in hospital, still unconscious. Maybe Ophelia’s just keeping her head down and working hard, giving herself a fresh start. I can only hope—what else do I have?
With a defeated sigh, I swipe through my phone and get to the bottom of the pile of messages, finally. My heart skips a beat when I get to the last text.
I’ve been too busy to think about him, and that might have been a blessing, because the moment I allow myself to do so, my body is flooded with a disorienting rush of heat.
Leaning back against the wall, shoulders resting against the glass display cabinet behind me, I let out a sharp breath, bite my lip and open his text.
Unknown: Meet in your office at eight, love. Be a good girl, now, and don’t ignore this text.